Fall Is Here, In More Ways Than One

October 27, 2007

Ahhhhh….Saturday morning. The day we get to loll in bed, snuggling and drinking coffee and catching each other up on the week’s news. We jabber endlessly about everything under the sun, make plans for the future, and map out the weekend. My favorite day.

During the week, Tom wakes up and gets us coffee. He brings a carafe of it up to me in bed before he gets ready for work. This morning, I woke up first. My plan was to sneak downstairs, brush my teeth, get the carafe and bring it upstairs to my sleeping sweetie, who I’d awaken with a kiss.

It didn’t exactly go according to plan. With a the finesse of a delicate ballerina, I started at the top step, and WHAM! My feet went out from under me like they were covered in banana peels. In fast-motion, I slid down six or seven steps, making a nice loud BOOM, BOOM, BOOM sound as my head hit each one. Nice. Smooth. Tom leapt out of bed and ran down to help me. All I could think about was that I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet, so I wouldn’t talk to him to tell him that I was okay. Besides, I’m still not sure if I am okay.

Even the tiniest misstep can have devastating effects on me. Last week, I misjudged the height of the step on my mother’s back porch and sort of jarred my body. It made me cry, because I knew that a little mistake like that could cost me for a long time, because of the Fibromyalgia. And it did. Of course, I then I get into the whole cycle of trying not to see it that way, trying to change my thinking so as not to make what I’m anticipating (from past history) come to pass. But it always does. And it’s happening again today, in spades.

Oh, geez. Ouch. I’m so sorry. I totally know what that feels like. And don’t try to do the mind over matter thing with fibro. (Not that I’m telling you what to do or anything. 🙂 ) If that worked none of us would ever be in pain, right?

Take care of yourself. 🙂

Ouch is right! I’ve been semi-immobile for two days because of this. Forget about positive thinking– I’m in pain, damnit!

You are a lucky gal to have not laid your melon open! Of course a luckier gal wouldn’t have fell in the first place. Sorry but in cases of personal and bodily injury, the glass is seldom half-full when I’m looking at it, he he

Also… no good deed goes unpunished, ya know.

I guess we’re still in the honeymoon phase, but it’s the part of the honeymoon phase where I fall down the steps a lot. Or off of my bicycle. Or any number of situations where I get to impress Tom with my graceful ways.

This part “I knew that a little mistake like that could cost me for a long time…” really got to me because that’s how I think now. I don’t have fibro but I am very clumsy, and when I broke my foot a few years ago and was in bed for roughly four months, it changed me and made me a more fearful person. Now when I start to go down for any reason, slipping, tripping, stumbling or whatever, all I think in my head is “how is this going to change my life?” That was what I was thinking two years ago when I slipped on some ice as I walked across a parking lot and my face/head hit the curb so hard I blacked out. People had crowded around me as I came to and staggered to my feet. I was so humiliated. And it left me with the worst black eye you’ve ever seen — seriously — and it stayed for weeks. I was asked to leave work because no one could stand seeing it, people averted their eyes in stores, and it was insulting how many people actually made little comments that my husband must have hit me and I was covering for him. Plus, my face and head hurt!

Falling is terrifying to me now. I was never one to laugh when people fell anyway, always hated slapstick, but now when I see people fall I think my heart actually stops. I hate it. I’m glad you didn’t break anything, and I hope you’re feeling better soon.

Oh yes, every dip in the road, every pile of clothes carried that’s 2 oz. too heavy, every window I close, can be the thing that’s going to jar me into messed-up-ness. And though a normal person would never notice this small degree of misalignment, it ruins me for days or weeks. My whole left side tightens up as though a seam were being pulled through all of it. I try to explain this to others and they look at me like I’m insane.